SAN JUAN HILL
Looking West
Looking West
Looking NW
Hook at pad
Arty hill
TOC hill
Hill shadow
Saddle
East to Seacoast
Looking SW
Looking SSW
Me and Lt. Fitz.- he was a 2-digit midgit.
The OPERATIONS BOARD in the Col.'s briefing room in the Tactical Operations Controll bunker.
Enemy weapons captured in our A.O.
Here's another
The Col.(sorry, forgot your name Sir) and the Secretary of the Army
Stanley Resor.
(Sorry about the un-focused photo but it was a war zone and everything
wasn't always perfect.)
1 Gun F.M.
4 Gun firemission
4 Gun firing at RP#2
4 Gun firing East. Line Co. in rear waiting at helipad.
next shot
Platoon area
Day bunker guard (a time to get some sleep-guy at lower rt).
BARBEQUE
Once the messhall gave us hamburger so they wouldn't have to cook it
for
us.
Guys front of FDC
The Club
Beer&Soda
Throwing dirtballs
81mm pit on hill
When each line company rotated onto the hill their 4-0 element (mortar
squad) fired from this gunpit. Once when firing to the left of the picture
there was a short round that landed 50-75 mtrs. away in the perimeter wire
and exploded. Later on LZ Avenger (JUMPS) two from B.Co. were killed in
a friendly fire incident.
Fighter jets that didn't release all their ordinance on their missions
got a chance to do so while passing by on their return trip. Commonly they
were directed to our RPs-registration points.
Airstrike
Ordinance Release
PRACTICE CS GAS ALERT
Sgt. Holland didn't need a protective mask as he had a hangover, at least he was shaving first thing in the morning.
Warlord 1
Warlord 2
Warlord 3
Cook&RubberDoll
Someone got a care package from home with a fun toy.
Crew Bunkers
Everyone was building their own hooch or bunker (glorified foxholes)
and some were caving in from the weight of the monsoon rains.The Engineers
airlifted in a D-6 dozer and crew bunker kits,
cleared the ground and set the basic structure up and we finished off
the inside and sandbagging & etc. The dozer almost covered an existing
bunker with dirt. An off-duty guy was inside sleeping off a hangover. He
wasn't hurt and didn't even know he was being buried.
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Crew Bunker Kit
Digging 3 Crew Bunker Kit
Dirt on bunker
Haircuts
Helix&WP
Helix overhead
Hook&H2o
In FDC
LRRP
A long-range reconniasance patroll was dropped off here for a bite
to eat (they went to the head of the line) before returning to the rear
and de-breifing. Here they're heading up to the helipad. Looks like a Black
Lab there with them.
MUD!!!
The messhall is at the end of the Monsoon Mud Chowline!
Ski Hut
Guys called me "Sgt. Ski" so I named my hooch after me.
Inside my hooch - the makeshift candle was fashioned out of the beeswax/paper
coating each round.
Dead snag NDP
Night defensive position - in the clear area,center of photo- the circle
in the grass just past the bare dead tree(we used to target-practice shooting
it). Here's where our line companies would set up for the night. Since
there were pre-existing foxholes which could be booby-trapped the standard
proceedure was to clear each one with a hand grenade. Once somebody didn't
and got himself messed-up. Photos "Dustoff 1&2 show the chopper landing
to evacuate him. To the right of the bend of the river (later time-frame)
we set off illumination rounds with delayed timefuse settings to ensure
the round was burning as it landed, thereby setting the dry jungle brush
on fire triggering secondary explosions (booby traps) that would have killed
or wounded someone.
Dustoff 1
Dustoff 2
After an all night fire mission the crew of this mortar failed to clean it before going off-duty and to sleep- thereby rendering it inoperable. The squad leader got an Article 15.
105mm Howitzer
Jerry Haines, myself and Chuck Theusch at FDC door
Brian Keenan and 90mm recoilless rifle, he was 11-H
90mm firing fleshettes -
Platoon Sgt. Lindo (also 11H) at the helm
Blowing Duds
A detail to blow up our own duds outside the wire so they could not
be used against us in booby-traps. One of our Claymore mines was found(wrapped
in det-chord), taken from its position on the perimeter wire at night.
On this mission we also placed ground sensors in an area of defilade below
the dump to detect intruders.
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81mm impact point
Dud M-79 round
Claymore
Blowing-Duds
Doing-Laundry
Sandbag-filling
Shit-burning
RAT
We were infested with them and there was a hill-wide contest to see
which unit caught the most of them the night before. The mature adults
were as big as housecats. This was a small one about 6"-7" nose-to-anus.
Target practice at garbage dump
Captured enemy ammo
EOD blowing up same
FDC-1
Commo equiptment
Plotting Firemission
Vertical Firing Chart
I made this to more quickly figure the charge correction for the differences in elevation of the gun and target positions.
Installing RPG wire1
Installing RPG wire2
Unload Hook 1
Unload Hook 2
Company patrol in valley to west- a line company walked off the hill
to the west and southwest
(inside blue rectangle).
WP 2-packs
Two VC were spotted on the bare hill before the right cloud of smoke.
The first 2 rounds landed way too long and I watched in binoculars
as they exited stage left before we dropped our range to hit on the hill.
They probably escaped unscathed.
Claymore cap
Needing wire for aiming post lights for night firing I scavenged a roll
of Claymore mine wire from a garbage can. Apparently someone from a line
company had dumped it there after scavenging the C-4 out of it for cooking
fuel - which was a common practice.Well they didn't take the blasting cap
out and I didn't check for it when I put a battery to it for circuit continuity.
Well we just got a new company commander in from the field ( a short Captian)
who just happened to be walking by when it went off. He hit the ground
like a ton of bricks before I realized what happened. He wasn't hurt, just
reacted like a grunt. We all make mistakes - I didn't get an article 15
for it.
Larry-guitar-John
Quad-50 Mission
A VC bootcamp and training area was found in the jungle and our boys
were called in to fire on it.
Afterwards a chopper went out to inspect the damages. After that an
airstrike was called in on it.
1
2
3
4
5
6
PROBE
One monsoon night we were Probed - our perimeter wire was blown open
with a bangalore torpedo to test our response.
It apparently set off the Foo-gas. This is repairing the wire the morning
after.
Blown foogas
Sunset
Illumination over Arty hill
Road lit by illumination rounds and same from firebase on southern horizon.
These 2 photos were taken prior to the probe but illustrate the effect.
Foogas 1
Foogas 2
Nitefire 1
Nitefire 2
Spookie Gunship on-station
1
2
3
4
Me photo Spookie
Casseopea
Sunrise
Valley fog 1
Valley fog 2
Valley fog 3
Rebuild 3 gun ammo bunker
Playing football - when the helipad was widened we had some room for sports.
Formation 1&2
After the helipad was enlarged someone got the idea that we should have
a battalion formation on it. I seem to recall from combat training never
to bunch-up close together "'cause one round will get you all".
__________________
Formation 1
Formation 2
Short-range Recon patrol
Jack Ellis (my gunner) and I went out with our recon element to destroy
some VC hooches about a kilometer or less off the hill. We found fresh
clothes, a rice cache, a rusty M-60 and I picked up a war-trophy 6-ft.
Montagnard spear and a round-bottomed rice pot. We were flank security
while they burned it all out.
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Me & Jack
VC Hooches
Returning up the hill
Spoils of War
NOTEWORTHY INCIDENTS
M-79 Grenade-vs-Huey incident: We made a homebrew adjustable
wood frame out of ammo
boxes to enable us to fire an M-79 high-angle like a mortar to impact
in the defilade spot below the garbage dump. One day we were test firing
it and a Huey took off from the pad just after we fired and flew down the
saddle and over the dump to pick up airspeed as was usual. Well the round
was "shot-over" and we couldn't controll it. The bird was flying right
into its trajectory and there was nothing any of us could do about it.
Sgt. Lindo was there too. Luckily the Huey flew forward of the impact point
before it did, and he radioed back asking if we were taking incoming.
B-52 Strike: There was one in a valley to the far west out of
our AO. One could see the explosions progressing along the flight path
for what seemed like a click or so. Then after a minute or two we heard
the earthquale-like rumbling. There was some very nasty stuff impacting
there.
Explosion in line bunker: A perimeter bunker west of the 81mm
mortar gunpit (the SE part of Arty hill) had a fire in it and a handgrenade
went off. Whoever was in there was medevaced out and we never heard any
more about him.
Someone blew up- the Col's piss tube with a hand-frag in the
middle of the night and there was a hill-wide alert as someone thought
were taking incoming fire. The line troops were expressing what they felt
about his agressive stance on their patrolling as they were being booby-trapped
and loosing guys.
A 3/4ton weapons carrier- had brake problems and was left on
the helipad for pickup and shuttle to the rear for repair. The downwash
of the helicopter blew it off the pad and down the hill as its handbrake
was never set. It was retrived and considered a combat loss. Besides hauling
our ammo from the pad to the main ammo bunker it was used on the hill to
spray mosquito insecticide and CS gas in a combat mode and I'm sure many
other jobs.
Cease-Fires: There were 2-3 and the extra ammo we had on hand
because of not firing during those times had to be disposed of so we basically
wasted it by firing it all up after the cease-fire times.
173rd Airborn Division: During the last 2-3 mos of my tour they
were being shuttled through the hill for points to the north.
2VietCong: were captured and shuttled through the hill on the
way to the rear.They are the next two pictures.
THE ENEMY
vcpris1
vcpris2
